The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (2021) is a horror/thriller game following a squad of U.S troops in the 2003 Iraq war tasked with uncovering a suspected enemy gun storage facility when they realize they disturbed something more sinister. Throughly the game, expect language and bloody images along with sexual banter. VIOLENCE: SEVERE During the opening scene a giant battle is shown being fought and we also see chopped off heads from sacrifices and we see a woman killed with a spear (in my playthrough) and having her head chopped off and thrown into an altar. We also see men killed by a monster. This is the only scene showing dismemberment or gore in the entire game as far as I’ve seen. Towards the beginning of the game there is war violence and combat showing people (including possible civilians) being shot down with blood splatter along with friendly soldiers, on one occasion we see a man slowly bleeding out with blood seeping from his nose and face. Throughout the game expect lots of bloody images and monster violence along with death of your protagonists in several different ways. We see a man caught in barbed wire bleeding out towards the beginning with a gratuitous amount of blood smearing everywhere as he dies, we see people impaled with rocks, on countless occasions vampire-like monsters are shot and impaled with a metal rod, in one outcome a man and a woman can be exploded with a tripwire chanting their bodies beyond recognition, people are shot out of mercy spraying blood and pooling it around while making bullet holes, characters transform into vampires and are killed/burned with UV lights, lots of gun combat as well between American and Iraqi soldiers, this doesn’t result in death like earlier but just in damage as they work to their against the monsters, chase toes are clawed and eaten by monsters usually offscreen but showing blood spray, a woman swims through a river of blood, maggots are shown crawling out of a corpses mouth and many other violent/bloody images showing no gore (save for the opening), just a rather substantial amount of blood. The violence in this game doesn’t exceed that of other horror games and is much milder than Until Dawn and several others, it really felt quite moderate but because of the stakes it was more impactful and shocking therefor earning it a MILDY severe rating. LANGUAGE: SEVERE Frequent use of “f*ck” and “sh*t”, infrequent use of “b*tch”, “damn”, “hell”, “p*ssy”, “motherf*cker” and other milder profanity. The language is likely the strongest part of the game. SEXUAL CONTENT: MILD Lots of sexual banter, especially towards the beginning between Joey and Merwin. These include a sexual spin on the military term “pull in and pull out” in which a man makes a spin on it that if he “didn’t pull out of your mom” than he would be his father. A man says “what’s the doffeeence between your mom and the Bermuda Triangle? They both swallow marines.”. In the same scene a man says “your momma so ugly, I called her for phone sex now I have a f*cking ear infection”, other references include, “the only place I let a woman boss me around like that is in between the sheets”, “we locked this place down tighter than a virgins-“, “a good rub-down will sort that right out”, Along with some other playful sexual remarks. DRUG CONTENT: MILD Soldiers find heroin under a trap door, this is brief.